The great men themselves are the ultimate fixers of their own price • 276 Here is the final proof that living great men, not past conditions, are the causes _practically_ involved in progress • 276 Thus living great men are masters of the situation • 277 because no one can tell that they have exceptional powers till they choose to show them • 277 They cannot, therefore, be coerced from without, like ordinary workers • 278 They must be _induced_ to work by a reward • 278 which they themselves feel to be sufficient • 279 Hence the great man’s character and requirements impress themselves on the structure of society • 279 This is what socialists constantly forget • 280 and they propose to equalise matters by not offering great men any exceptional reward • 281 They forget to ask whether, under these circumstances, great men would exercise or reveal their exceptional powers at all • 281 Exceptional rewards are essential to exceptional action • 282 We must inquire what the required exceptional rewards are • 283 CHAPTER II THE MOTIVES OF THE EXCEPTIONAL WEALTH-PRODUCER Socialists, though often forgetting the necessity of exceptional motives, often remember it, • 284 and endeavour to show that socialistic society would have sufficient rewards to offer to its great men, • 284 such as the pleasure of doing good, of excelling, and of receiving honour • 285 The fundamental question is, will such rewards as these stimulate great men to wealth-production? • 285 Is the enjoyment of exceptional wealth superfluous as a motive to producing it? • 286 If it is so, it is for the socialists to prove that it is so; • 286 for they themselves admit that it has not been so in the past, and is not actually so now • 287 Are there any signs, then, that the desire for exceptional wealth is beginning to lose its power? • 288 We shall find that the socialists themselves maintain just the contrary; • 288 for they appeal to the desire of each producer to possess all he produces as the most universal and permanent desire in man; • 289 and never questioned this so long as they believed that the sole producer was the labourer • 289 They questioned the doctrine only when they came to see that the great man is a producer also; and they confine their questioning to his case • 290 But if the labourer desires to possess what he produces, much more will the great man do so; • 290 for even if he gives away what he produces, he desires to possess it first • 291 There is no sign, therefore, that the desire for exceptional wealth is losing force as a motive • 292 Are, then, other desires acquiring new force as motives to wealth-production? • 292 Are the joys of excelling, of benefiting others, or of being honoured by others, doing so? • 293 The desire of these joys is a motive to certain kinds of exceptional conduct • 293 It is a motive to benevolent action and religious work; • 293 But neither of these is the same thing as wealth-production • 294